Co-chairs: Rahaab Allana & Roobina Karode
Keynote Address: Iftikhar Dadi (online)

Co-organised in conjunction with the ongoing exhibition, Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular, co-curated by Iftikhar Dadi and Roobina Karode in collaboration with Sharjah Art Foundation, and the launch of the 2023 reader, Unframed: Discovering Image Practices in South Asia edited by Rahaab Allana, co-produced by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts and HarperCollins Publishers India.

This one-day symposium in collaboration with The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts explores present modes of inquiry related to the ‘place’ South Asia, and the ‘idea’ of subcontinental identity as engaged through practice.

With reputed specialists from art production, curation and publishing, these talks question the complex, intersectional dimensions of arts practices in “South Asia” – a divided entity with major new borders gouged into a decolonised landmass. Based on personal experiences and projects, the speakers engage with shifting modes of image practice – fixed and itinerant formats – that have long enabled a deep visual interpretation, assimilation and diffraction of “South Asian” realities, and have continued to challenge existing discourses. How has image culture then transitioned into the contemporary “post-digital” moment and has it drastically altered our concepts of territoriality itself?

Session 1: New Images and Media
Speakers: Abdul Halik Azeez | Sheelasha Rajbhandari | Rashmi Devi Sawhney
Moderator: Shohini Ghosh

Session 2: Placemaking and Personal History
Speakers: Diwas Raja KC | Sandev Handy | Farah Mulla
Moderator: Nancy Adajania

Session 3: Diaspora and Post-Coloniality
Speakers: Jeanno Gaussi (Online)|Tanzim Wahab(Online)|Sasanka Perera
Moderator: Sabeena Gadihoke

Book Discussion of 2023 reader - Unframed: Discovering Image Practices
in South Asia
Rahaab Allana (editor) in conversation with Arushi Vats